further ahead now had he actually spent those two weeks doing what he intended to do rather than playing defense. i do know that focus groups, both romney campaign ran and the obama campaign ran showed these remarks really alienated independent voters and even weak republicans. which indicates to me that this comes up again in the debate and advertising, it will remind people. they forgot about it or responding to the debate. host: let's go to phone calls. barb, democratic caller you're on the air. caller: i would like to say that romney expressed his real feeling about the 47%. it cannot be ignored. also understand that he signed grover norquist pledge. if he did that, he cannot represent 100% of the population because if you say that you're going to ignore the situation that the country is in, you cannot say that you unequivocally ignore taxes and to get income to support the country. with that, he could not represent me and the middle class and or poor people. host: we'll leave it there. john in north carolina, tweets in this though. the 53% are not in the least offended by the comment which